It happened on a day that started out almost gentle.
The sky was clear, the air cool but kind. Morning sickness had come and gone quickly, leaving Mirai tired but functional. Classes passed in a blur of words and numbers. Kana flicked eraser crumbs at her during break, pretending to be annoyed when Mirai missed a joke, then sending her a message later:
You're zoning out. I'll bill you for my comedy.
Ordinary things trying their best to continue.
By the time the final bell rang, Mirai felt that rare, fragile thing that had become almost unfamiliar lately:
A day that was just… normal bad, not life-ending bad.
Then she decided to stop by the supermarket.
"Just a few things," her mother had said that morning. "If you don't feel too tired after school. Tofu, milk, some vegetables. Text me if it feels like too much."
"I can do it," Mirai had replied. "It's on the way."
Later, she would think about that sentence.
About how many stories change because of small choices like I can do it.
The station was busier in the afternoon.
Students, office workers, elderly people walking carefully up the stairs. Announcements echoing, trains arriving and leaving with their rush of sound and wind.
Mirai stepped out of the ticket gate and joined the flow heading toward the exit. Her bag felt heavier with each step, not just from books, but from the weight of the day.
She walked past the small bakery. The smell of warm bread floated out, comforting and distant.
Then she saw him.
He stood near the vending machines, half-turned, talking to another boy from school she vaguely recognized. His blazer unbuttoned, tie loose, laugh easy.
Her body recognized him before her mind did.
Her feet stopped.
For a second, it was as if the station sound dropped away. The world narrowed to a single point wearing a familiar uniform.
He looked almost exactly the same.
That bothered her more than she expected.
Same hair. Same posture. Same way of shifting his weight onto one foot, casual and unbothered. The same face that had once leaned close to say, "It's okay, I'm here."
And later, "Handle it yourself."
He didn't see her.
Not yet.
She could leave.
Turn around. Walk the other way. Let him remain just a shadow from before the world shifted. Pretend that seeing him now was nothing but a glitch in the universe.
Her heart pounded.
She thought of the sound in the clinic room.
The small, steady heartbeat.
The life he refused to see.
Her fingers curled into the strap of her bag.
I don't want to be the kind of person who always runs, she thought.
It was a quiet realization, almost tender.
She stepped forward.
"Hey," she said.
Her voice was soft, but it landed.
He froze.
His friend turned first, then moved aside, sensing something in the sudden stiffness between them. "I'll… go ahead," he muttered, walking away without looking back.
It was just the two of them now, swallowed by the crowd and somehow completely alone.
He turned toward her slowly.
His eyes widened, then shuttered.
"…Mirai," he said.
Her name sounded wrong in his mouth now. Like a song he'd forgotten the lyrics to.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then he looked away, as if the vending machines had suddenly become fascinating.
"It's been a while," she said.
The last time they'd stood this close had been in a different world. A world where she still believed they were on the same side.
"Yeah," he murmured. "I've been… busy."
The word scraped her.
Busy.
Too busy to answer her calls.
Too busy to think about the test in her shaking hand.
Too busy to be anything but a ghost in the story he helped create.
He shifted awkwardly, hands in his pockets.
"What… are you doing here?" he asked, as if she were the intruder in his day.
"Coming back from school," she answered. "Like you."
Her tone was calm. Too calm, almost. She wondered if he heard the tightness under it.
He nodded, eyes sliding past her, skimming her face without resting.
The silence stretched.
"I went to your house," she said, when it became clear he wasn't going to say anything real. "You remember."
His jaw tightened.
"Mirai," he began, "I told you—"
"I just want to ask one thing," she cut in, voice trembling slightly. "And then I won't… bother you again."
His eyes flicked to hers, then away.
"What?" he muttered.
Mirai swallowed.
"Do you ever think about it?" she asked. "About what you said to me. To my face. When I told you I was pregnant."
The word lay between them like a crack in the floor.
His shoulders tensed.
"We already talked about this," he said. "There's no point bringing it up again."
She stared at him.
"You told me," she said quietly, "that it was my responsibility. That I should handle it. That you needed to focus on your future."
The words tasted as bitter now as they had back then.
"You said I'd ruin your life," she added. "If I didn't… get rid of it."
He flinched. Just a little. A small crack in the carefully-built mask.
"Don't say it like that," he snapped softly, eyes flashing. "You make it sound like I… wanted to hurt you."
"Didn't you?" she asked. The question was simple. Heavy.
He looked away again.
"I was scared," he muttered. "My parents… they freaked out. They said I had to focus on exams. I can't just… throw everything away because you—"
"Because I got pregnant?" she finished for him.
He shut his mouth.
Mirai's fingers tightened around the strap of her bag.
"You talk about your future like it's something holy," she said. "Like it's this fragile glass you have to protect at all costs. Even if it means shattering someone else's life instead."
"That's not fair," he said. His voice rose a little. "We're both young. We both made a mistake. Why does everything have to fall on me?"
The irony of that sentence almost made her laugh.
"Everything fell on me," she said. The tremor left her voice; it came out almost eerily calm. "You walked away."
"I didn't walk away," he argued weakly. "I told you my position. I told you I couldn't—"
"Couldn't what?" she asked. "Couldn't stand next to me? Couldn't look at what we did together? Couldn't say the word we without choking?"
He inhaled sharply.
"You think this hasn't been hard on me too?" he snapped. "You think I haven't been stressed? My parents keep watching me like I'm going to ruin everything. I have to pretend nothing's wrong. I have to keep my grades up. Do you know how much pressure I'm under?"
The words hung in the air like smoke.
For a moment, Mirai was silent.
Then she spoke, softly.
"You're right," she said. "You do have pressure. But you still get to sleep without throwing up at 5 a.m."
He froze.
"You still get to walk into a classroom and not wonder who's whispering about whether you're showing yet," she continued. "You still get to eat without thinking, is this enough for the baby too? You still get to look in the mirror and see the same body, while mine changes every day because of something we both did."
Her eyes shone but she didn't look away.
"You still get to choose," she whispered. "Every single day. To act like nothing happened."
Something flickered in his face—guilt, maybe. Annoyance too.
"I didn't ask for this either," he muttered. "You're not the only victim here."
Mirai's breath hitched.
Victim.
The word echoed.
"I'm not… calling myself a victim," she said. "I'm saying I'm not the only one who is responsible. But right now, I'm the only one who's paying the price."
He opened his mouth, then shut it.
"I heard the heartbeat," she said.
He flinched like she'd struck him.
"At the clinic," she went on. "It's… tiny. Just a flicker on the screen. But it's there. It's real. It doesn't know it exists because we were careless. It just… is."
Her hand moved unconsciously to her abdomen.
He stared at that small gesture like it burned his eyes.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked hoarsely.
Because some part of me needed you to know.
Because some part of me still hoped you would hear that and change.
She breathed in. Breathed out.
"Because I wanted to see if you felt anything," she said. "Anything besides fear for yourself."
He didn't answer.
People flowed around them, a stream of bodies and voices and footsteps. They might as well have been underwater.
When he finally spoke, his voice had hardened again.
"What do you want from me?" he asked. "Money? I don't have that kind of money. Emotional support? I can't give you what you want. I'm not ready to be a father. I never asked for this."
She almost laughed. The sound stayed in her chest, brittle.
"I don't want anything from you," she said. "Not anymore."
He blinked.
"You came here," he said slowly, as if picking apart her statement. "You approached me."
"Yes," she said. "To see you clearly. One last time. Not the version in my head. The real one."
Her throat ached.
"I kept thinking," she admitted, "maybe you'd come around. Maybe you were just in shock. Maybe, after exams, or in a few months, you'd call. You'd say you were sorry. That you'd been a coward. That you wanted to try."
She held his gaze now, even as her eyes filled.
"I needed to know," she said, "whether that was ever going to happen."
His face closed off, completely.
Don't say it, she thought.
But he said it anyway.
"I… can't," he murmured. "I'm sorry. But I can't. My parents would never accept it. I'd lose everything I've worked for. I… I just can't."
The apology sat there, hollow. An empty envelope with nothing written inside.
Something gentle and quiet broke inside her.
Not a dramatic shatter.
More like a thread finally snapping after being pulled too tight for too long.
She nodded slowly.
"Okay," she said.
He frowned slightly, caught off guard.
"…Okay?" he echoed.
"Yes," she said. "Okay."
She took a breath.
"You've made your choice," she said. "You chose your exit. That's… who you are."
Her chest hurt, but the words came easier now.
"I won't ask you for money," she said. "I won't ask you to show up. I won't tell the school your name. I won't go to your parents' house again."
She swallowed.
"And if anyone asks," she added, "I'll say the father isn't involved. I won't drag you into it. You can keep your future."
Relief flickered across his face.
"Thank you," he said quickly. Too quickly.
"But," she said quietly, "you don't get one thing back."
He blinked.
"What?" he asked.
"My belief," she said.
He opened his mouth, then closed it when he saw her expression.
"When I told you," she went on, voice steadier than she felt, "I wasn't just asking, 'What should I do?' I was… holding out a piece of myself. The part that believed you wouldn't run. That believed you cared about me as a person, not just as someone who made you feel good for a while."
She shook her head, more at herself than at him.
"That part of me," she said softly, "is gone now. You don't get it back."
He looked unsettled in a way he hadn't when she'd said she was pregnant. As if something invisible had been taken from him, something he hadn't realized he valued.
"Mirai," he said, reaching out slightly, fingers twitching like he wanted to catch the air between them. "I didn't… mean to—"
"It doesn't matter what you meant," she interrupted, very gently. "It matters what you did."
He froze again.
She shifted her bag higher on her shoulder.
"You don't have to be the villain," she said. "You're just… the boy who chose himself. Over and over. When it counted most."
She took a step back.
"That's all I needed to know," she finished.
For a heartbeat, they stood there like that—two people on opposite sides of a decision that could never be undone.
Then she turned away.
He didn't call her name.
He didn't follow.
For the first time since this started, she didn't secretly hope he would.
Yuuto saw him before he saw her.
He had taken an earlier shift and finished just as the sky started turning the faint color of evening. The station was on his way back, and he'd stopped at the vending machines outside to buy a drink.
He was reaching for the buttons when he saw the familiar blazer, the familiar face, the slightly hunched shoulders.
The boy.
Alone now. Backpack slung over one shoulder, head tilted back as if staring at the station ceiling could answer some question.
Yuuto felt heat rush to his hands.
His first instinct was a physical one—the same one that had surged in the alley behind his workplace days ago.
You.
He took one step forward.
Then he stopped.
Mirai's face flashed in his mind.
Her crying in his arms. Her hand over her stomach in the clinic. Her smaller laugh at Kana's messages. Her tired eyes after school.
If he punched this boy now, if he dragged him against a wall and shouted everything he wanted to shout, who would it help?
The boy would be scared. Maybe bleat out some half-apology. Maybe act like the victim. People would intervene. Someone would film. A story would be born:
"Did you hear? Mirai's brother attacked some guy at the station."
Another stain on her name.
No.
Not like this.
He swallowed the anger down. It didn't disappear. It just changed shape—sharper, more focused.
He stepped closer anyway.
"Hey," Yuuto said.
The boy flinched and turned.
Recognition flickered in his eyes.
"You're…" he began.
"Her brother," Yuuto said. "Yeah. That one."
He didn't smile.
The boy's eyes darted around nervously, as if checking for exits.
"I don't want any trouble," he muttered.
"Relax," Yuuto said. "If I wanted trouble, we wouldn't be talking."
He let that hang just long enough to be understood.
The boy swallowed.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Yuuto studied him.
Up close, he looked… young.
Not in the obvious way—all students their age were young—but in the way his eyes darted, in the way his fingers couldn't find a place to rest, in the way his jaw clenched and unclenched like he was chewing on words he'd never say.
"I saw you talking to her," Yuuto said. "Earlier."
He froze.
"How did she… look?" the boy asked before he could stop himself.
"Like someone finally blew out a candle she'd been holding for too long," Yuuto said quietly.
The boy looked away.
Yuuto exhaled slowly.
"I'm not here to guilt you," he said. "Not because you don't deserve it. But because she doesn't need me wasting my energy on a fight that won't change anything."
The boy's shoulders tensed.
"Then why are you here?" he asked.
"To set one thing straight," Yuuto said.
His voice lost all its softness.
"You don't need to worry," he said. "We won't come after you. We won't ask for money. We won't show up at your house again. We won't drag your name through school."
The boy blinked, thrown.
"You… won't?" he echoed.
"No," Yuuto said. "You made your choice. We understand it now."
He stepped closer, just enough that his words wouldn't be overheard.
"But listen to me carefully," he added. "If I hear you've been talking about her. If I hear you've changed the story to make yourself look better—said she trapped you, or lied, or anything like that…"
His eyes hardened.
"I will not hit you," he said. "I'm not going to give you bruises you can show people."
He leaned in slightly.
"I will take your reputation apart," he said softly. "One quiet conversation at a time. I will make sure everyone knows exactly what you did when it mattered. Really know. Not as a rumor. As a fact."
The boy's face went pale.
"That's… a threat," he whispered.
"It's a promise," Yuuto corrected.
He straightened.
"I won't stop you from living your life," he said. "Go to your classes. Take your exams. Chase your future. Pretend this never happened if that helps you sleep."
His jaw clenched.
"But you don't get to hurt her twice," he finished. "Once by leaving. And again by lying."
The boy swallowed hard.
"I never—" he started.
Yuuto cut him off with a small shake of his head.
"It doesn't matter what you haven't done yet," he said. "It matters what you do from now on."
They stared at each other for a moment.
The boy looked away first.
"…Is she… okay?" he asked, voice very small.
It was such a simple question. So late.
Yuuto thought of Mirai fainting in class. Sitting in the nurse's office with her hands shaking. Standing in the meeting room, talking about her future while adults wrote her life in pencil. Laughing at Kana's stupid messages, crying in the dark, whispering to a life that didn't know it existed yet.
"She's still showing up," he said. "Even when it hurts."
He turned to go.
Behind him, the boy's voice came again, almost inaudible.
"Tell her I'm… sorry."
Yuuto stopped.
He closed his eyes briefly.
"No," he said without turning around.
The boy flinched.
"Why not?" he asked, a defensive edge creeping in.
"Because you want me to carry that," Yuuto said. "You want to hand me those words like a clean cloth and say, 'Give this to her. It'll make you feel better.'"
He looked over his shoulder.
"If you ever become the kind of person who can say it to her face without making excuses," he said, "you won't need me."
The boy had no answer.
Yuuto walked away.
His hands were still shaking. His chest still tight. But he knew he'd chosen the only path that didn't spill more damage into Mirai's life.
That night, they sat on the balcony for the first time in a while.
The air was cool, the sky patchy with clouds. City lights flickered in the distance, soft and indifferent. The rail felt cool under Mirai's fingers.
Yuuto handed her a cup of warm tea.
"You shouldn't be outside too long," he said. "You'll catch a cold."
"You sound like Mom," she said, lips quirking faintly.
"Someone has to fill in," he replied.
They sat in silence for a while.
Then Mirai spoke.
"I saw him today," she said.
"I know," Yuuto answered. "I saw him after."
She turned slightly.
"You… talked to him?" she asked.
"Yeah."
He took a sip of his own tea.
"I told him we won't ask anything from him," he said. "Also told him if he lies about you, I'll ruin his social life as gently and thoroughly as possible."
Her eyes widened.
"You didn't… hit him, right?" she asked quickly.
"No," he said. "Wanted to. Didn't."
"Good," she said softly. "I don't want… this to stain you more than it already has."
He glanced at her.
"How did it feel?" he asked. "Seeing him."
She stared at the sky for a moment.
"Strange," she said. "Like looking at an old photograph and realizing you don't recognize the person in it anymore. Even though it's clearly them."
He waited.
"I asked him if he ever thinks about what he said," she continued. "He said he was scared. That he has pressure. That he can't lose his future."
Her mouth twisted.
"He still said 'I' more than anything else," she added.
Yuuto was quiet.
"I realized something," Mirai said. "I wasn't really going there to ask for help. I was going to bury something."
"What?" he asked.
"Hope," she said simply.
The word felt heavy and light at the same time.
"I kept a little piece of hope," she admitted, "that he'd change his mind. That one day he'd wake up and call me and say, 'I've been an idiot. Let me fix what I can.'"
Her hand rested on her stomach.
"Today," she said, voice soft, "I saw the way he looked at me. Like I was a risk he couldn't afford. And then… something inside me finally said, enough."
Her eyes glistened, but she was not breaking.
"It hurts," she whispered. "Letting go. Even of a stupid hope. But it also feels… cleaner. Like ripping off a bandage that was already peeling."
Yuuto exhaled slowly.
"I'm proud of you," he said.
"For what?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"For seeing him clearly," he said. "And still choosing yourself. And… this." He nodded toward her abdomen.
She smiled weakly.
"I told him I don't want anything from him," she said. "Not money, not help, not his name. Just… the truth of who he is. So I can stop writing better versions of him in my head."
"That's more generous than he deserves," Yuuto muttered.
She looked at him.
"Did he… say anything to you?" she asked.
He hesitated.
"He wanted me to tell you he's sorry," he said.
She watched his face.
"And you didn't?" she guessed.
He shook his head.
"I told him if he ever grows a spine, he can say it himself," he said. "Until then, he doesn't get to give me packages of guilt to deliver."
Her chest warmed.
"Thank you," she said.
He shrugged, embarrassed.
"I just don't want you to mistake his convenience for courage," he said.
They fell into silence again.
The city hummed.
Somewhere below, a car passed. A dog barked in the distance. A baby cried in another apartment, its thin wail carried faintly by the wind.
Mirai closed her eyes for a moment.
"I thought seeing him would break me again," she admitted. "But it didn't. It… hurt. A lot. But it also… made something clear."
"What?" he asked.
"That I'm not waiting for him anymore," she said. "Whatever I do from now on… it won't be for his sake. Or because I'm hoping he'll come back. It'll be for me. For…" Her hand moved, almost unconsciously, to her stomach. "For us."
Her voice shook on the last word, but she let it stay.
Yuuto watched her profile. The way the balcony light drew a soft outline around her.
"You keep saying you're weak," he said. "But you do things that would crush most people."
"I don't feel strong," she said.
"Maybe strength isn't a feeling," he replied. "Maybe it's just… continuing, even when everything in you wants to stop."
She huffed softly.
"Now you sound like some wise old man," she said.
"Rude," he replied. "I'm in my prime."
She smiled.
For a moment, it was almost like before. Just two siblings on a balcony, quietly mocking each other while the city moved around them.
Only now, there was a third, silent presence between them. Small. Unseen. A heartbeat she carried where no one else could reach.
Mirai looked down at her hands.
"One less person," she said, half to herself. "But… the people left are the ones who chose to stay."
She thought of her parents, fumbling and trying. Of Kana, ready to bite rumor's throat. Of the nurse, reshaping the school's response. Of Yuuto, standing between her and a boy who chose the exit.
"I think…" she murmured, "I can live with that."
The wind brushed past them, cool and gentle.
Somewhere inside her, that steady, tiny heartbeat kept going.
Unaffected by boys who ran.
Unaffected by whispers that hadn't started yet.
Unaffected by anything except time and care and the choices she would make.
Mirai lifted her head and looked at the sky.
"I don't know what kind of life I can give you," she thought, the words forming silently. "But I promise this: I won't pretend you're nothing. And I won't ever choose the exit you weren't given."
The fear was still there. Heavy. Real.
But now, finally, it stood beside something else:
A decision that didn't depend on a boy who had already turned his back.